30. Avoid Book Marketing Burnout! How to Market Your Book, without the stress with Lyda Mclallen of Talk + Tell Book Publishing Company [Interview]

Avoid Book Marketing Burnout! How to Market Your Book, without the stress with Lyda Mclallen of Talk + Tell Book Publishing Company

Simplifying Book Marketing with Lyda from Talk Plus Tell

In this episode of Mom Writes First, host Jen chats with Lyda Mclallen, owner of the book publishing company Talk Plus Tell. Lyda, who has been in the industry for over seven years and guided 200+ authors, shares practical tips on making book marketing easier and more enjoyable. She emphasizes the importance of identifying your target audience early in the writing process and provides insights into structural, copy, and proof edits. Jen and Lyda discuss the value of creating a book that resonates with your audience and how to leverage testimonials for long-term success. The conversation touches on building a supportive writing community and how authors can maintain focus on their goals amidst life's demands. They also highlight the significance of romanticizing the writing process and making marketing fun and engaging.

00:00 No More Book Marketing Burnout!
02:09 Introduction and Guest Introduction
03:22 Understanding Your Target Audience
05:46 The Editing Process Explained
09:51 Effective Marketing Strategies
11:13 The Value of Testimonials
19:05 Empowering Authors and Building Community
25:46 Conclusion and How to Connect

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Chapters

• 0:00 No More Book Marketing Burnout!
• 2:09 Introduction and Guest Introduction
• 3:22 Understanding Your Target Audience
• 5:46 The Editing Process Explained
• 9:51 Effective Marketing Strategies
• 11:13 The Value of Testimonials
• 19:05 Empowering Authors and Building Community
• 25:46 Conclusion and How to Connect

Transcript

No More Book Marketing Burnout!

 [00:00:00] 

Jen: Does the idea of marketing your book feel more overwhelming than an endless pile of laundry? Well, guess what? This episode is here to help with a publishing and marketing expert who is going to tell you her secret to make marketing easier and more fun. Let's go. 

Jen: You are listening to Mom Writes First, where we're all about inspiring busy moms to make their writing dreams a reality.

Jen: Hello, and welcome to Mom Writes First. I'm Jen, and I'm so glad you're here today. This episode is for all of you who are wondering how you are going to market your book. If like me, you find yourself thinking, Hey, I am a writer, not a marketer.

Jen: If you say to yourself, Oh, I'd rather write than spend time doing some TikToks, then you have to pop in your AirPods, grab your coffee and listen to this episode. 

Jen: [00:01:00] Today, I am bringing you a chat with my friend Lyda.

Jen: She is the owner of Talk Plus Tell, a book publishing company and a hub for authors who are trying to bring their stories to life. Lyda has been operating Talk Plus Tell for more than seven years. and has guided over 200 authors through the process of publishing and promoting their books. The woman knows what she is talking about.

Jen: She's helped other people. She's helped me and she can help you too. Lyda is going to share some super practical and helpful tips on what you can do to set yourself up for marketing success, no matter where you are in your writing journey, whether you're just starting out writing or you're whether you're in the editing process, or whether you have a published book already,

Jen: if you want to get your work into the hands of your adoring readers, then you have to listen to this episode. 

Jen: Plus, make sure you listen all the way to the end to find out how Lida makes [00:02:00] her morning coffee even better. All right, my friends, let's get to it. Here's Lida.

Introduction and Guest Introduction

Jen: Hi, Lyda. Thank you so much for being here to talk to me about how moms can market themselves in a way that's not going to burn themselves out, market their books and stories in a way that's maybe even going to be fun. Before we get to all that, can you tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world?

Lyda: Yeah, of course. Um, so I own a book publishing company called Talk Plus Tell, and I've had it for over seven years now, which is amazing. And I help authors who are not necessarily writers, but just really share their story and bring it to the public in, um, a simple and, um, way that really inspires readers.

Jen: one of the reasons I wanted to have you, um, on the podcast was because of the fact that you do work with a [00:03:00] variety of authors. And so you bring different perspectives. I'd love to chat with you a little bit about, um, What, um, folks who are maybe writing their first book and trying to figure out like once they have the book, how they're going to put it out there in the world so that people can see it and kind of market in a way, market it in a way that resonates with them.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Jen: What, what do you do with your clients to kind of help them do that?

Lyda: I think like the very first step that you want to take is, um, like, let's say you have your manuscript, you've gone through it, you've had your best friend or your husband or somebody read over it. And the first step is, is that you want to really know, like, there's kind of two steps. They kind of go out at together.

Lyda: It's like, who is your target audience? And you really want to know exactly who that is, um, and that's the sense of like, if it's a children's book, let's say, and it's on therapy, your target audience is probably going to be moms. Maybe if the book's on feelings, they want to help their kid regulate their feelings.[00:04:00] 

Lyda: So you really want to understand like what, who they are, what are their pains and gains. So like their pain is, is like, um, they, they just, they don't know how they want to make sure they're doing it in a fun and loving way. Um, and maybe a gain around, um, that type of children's book is that their kids are going to be brought up to be like, no, as adults with knowing how to regulate their emotions, knowing what the difference emotions are.

Lyda: So it's really beneficial. So when you're editing that type of book and publishing and creating all the covers and everything, you know how you're creating it. To that target audience. So with a memoir, let's say on all these, like an example, like self love, cause we're publishing a book on self love right now.

Lyda: Um, you want to make sure that it represents that target audience. So like with this book, her target audience is, um, trauma survivors, that they create self love and they can have that loving, beautiful life. Again, after trauma, and so we know who that targeted audience is, so we know how to edit for them.

Lyda: We know how to do the cover design for them. We know how to market for them. So a lot of times, [00:05:00] like if you're doing it all by yourself, like do it yourself way, you want to make sure you outline your target audience first before you begin the editing process. So a lot of people skip that and they do the target audience after they do the publishing and that's okay.

Lyda: It's never too late, but you want to make, it's always smart to do it beforehand. Okay. And then you do want to get an editor. That would be like, probably that's kind of the step that goes hand in hand. And your editor should have to do the research as well to get an idea of who your target audience is.

Lyda: If you're doing a children's book, you don't necessarily need an editor. If it's only 500 words or less than that, that should be something that they could help without. Charging a huge fee. It should not even be a fee in most cases, um, in that sense, but an editor. 

The Editing Process Explained

Lyda: So like, there's three types of edits that you'll want to do.

Lyda: There's a structural edit, a copy edit, and the final proof at it. So a structural edit is looking at your plot. It's looking at like, how can we add more information? Where is like, is the [00:06:00] introduction strong? So for an example, for structural edit, We're doing a structural edit for one of her books by Tracy and hers is a memoir on how she overcame like a mystery disease and pain that no doctor could understand what it was.

Lyda: And she went through this whole amazing journey and fought for herself to understand what that pain, where it was coming from, what is the solution? What can she do and how can she manage it as well? And she did it. Uh, I won't give all the details cause it's not published yet. Um, but for the structural edit.

Lyda: What we did is we rewrote the introduction so that way that, that her pain, cause pain is universal and the feelings, even though she went through something so extreme, that pain is still universal. So we rewrote the introduction in a way that everybody could relate to that type of emotion. We did a dear reader section and a new introduction.

Lyda: So she kind of spoke to the reader as a summary of what she wants them to really see from her story and like, kind of like a, like a love letter to the reader. Almost. And then we [00:07:00] kind of like added more information about her journey of like, I asked those questions of like, well, where were you at this time?

Lyda: Like, what were you feeling? Like what described the room? So that way we can visualize it. We really wanted to do the structural edit similar to a book, like something like educated, um, that did really well, um, that was published a couple of years ago and really kind of compare how that book was structured to this one. And then of course you have copy edit, which comes next. And that's your grammar, um, and that's just making sure you want shorter sentences, for example, for making it easy to scan, um, shorter paragraphs. So it's just kind of like the, like making sure your voice is consistent. And then there's the proof edit.

Lyda: And the proof edit is like, did you spell USA, America, United States, and sticking to one? So it's kind of like those embarrassing errors that you don't normally catch. Not every author needs all three of these edits. If you're doing a structural edit and a copy edit, you don't need a proof edit, realistically.

Lyda: Unless, like, you're somebody extremely [00:08:00] famous, that people are going to maybe look for those kind of small errors. But a lot of times, that editor already catches those things for you. same with some authors, they don't need a structural edit, they just need a copy edit. it's really case by case of what your book is about. 

Jen: That is so helpful. I really appreciate like the framework that you've laid out around it. one thing that's just struck out to me was that if you want to make marketing easier for you. If you begin a little bit with that end in mind of who your target audience is going to be, it's going to be a little bit easier, because I think a lot of us, like as first time writers, perhaps, come to it with this great idea, and we're looking to, like, really focus on that creative and joyful aspect of writing and getting the story out.

Jen: But then when it comes to that next phase, what I'm hearing about is that's where you really can dial down and think about, Okay, you got maybe what you need, author, in terms of putting that story out into the world. Now let's think [00:09:00] about your reader and what they need and what they want.

Lyda: a lot of times they have all these other questions of details that you just, you just forgot about. And they're like, well, what happened? Like, um, I know like with the book Educated, for example, I know a lot of readers would ask the author afterwards, well, what happened to your boyfriend? Are you still with him?

Lyda: Cause like they're so invested in the story that they feel like they're your, their best friends with your friends, with you, even though you're, You don't know them, but they know you and they have all these questions maybe in the follow up and they want to kind of like know where you are now. If it's a memoir, same with fiction too, like we look at like the um, the author Sarah Mass of um, the ACOTAR series.

Lyda: Um, like people want, they cut their, they follow her, they're curious about what her life is like because they're huge fans of her fictional book. Hmm.

Jen: Those are really great examples. 

Effective Marketing Strategies

Jen: So once you have your target audience in mind, and maybe you have something of a finished product, maybe you've even gone out there and like published your [00:10:00] book, whether you've self published it or work with like a hybrid publisher, or maybe even like a traditional What are some ways that you can Market the book in a way that will be really effective but won't burn you out.

Lyda: there's so many resources.

Lyda: Everybody's telling you to do a hundred things. Like here's my marketing checklist of everything you need to do to launch your book. It's like. I mean, you're not, it's not realistic. Um, like even for me as a business owner, if I did all the things, I would be burnt out and nothing would get done. Um, so kind of, I always recommend, like, if you're doing it yourself, do one thing at a time and pick one thing.

Lyda: So if your goal and you need to get instant sales, then you should do a campaign that's going to result in instant sales. But if you have time to grow your audience, Um, and then I'll have a bit more detail and how I use it and the way I'm going to do it. Um, and then when I [00:11:00] do, I'll have a link and if you want to see those slides as well, I will link to it.

Lyda: Um, but for now, I'm going to close the video. Take care. Items on marketing where you can get bulk sales. 

The Value of Testimonials

Lyda: what I recommend is doing testimonials because you can get long term success from it.

Lyda: Um, it creates credibility, bookstores like it, libraries love it too. So what that means is that you're going to target, you're not going to target Oprah Winfrey. Um, I've tried once, um, where I found her, I was in a meeting at this thing and I found her best friend and I was like, handed the book there, but it didn't amount to anything.

Lyda: Target somebody where you want to be in five years for an author. So we did this for one of our authors and we targeted a couple of New York Times bestselling authors and we got testimonials from them. Um, so like James Rollins, um, I think that's how you say his name. Um, and we targeted him. So he gave us a testimonial and then he shared the book to his audience as well.

Lyda: And that generated sales, but that also took [00:12:00] us two months to get because they have to read the book. Okay. So keep that in mind. So let's say you have somebody really big, like you want Reese Witherspoon. that's a long shot for sure. but see who's like who she's connected to and do a ladder effect towards them So do some low hanging fruit first, like if your book is on mental health, let's say target local therapists and ask them for support There was a children's book that did a really good job and it was about teaching your baby how to say no To people like no if they don't want to hug they can say no and what they did On their campaign was testimonials where they reached out to tons of therapists to get testimonials for this book.

Lyda: They got onto a lot of a podcast as a result. They got into bookstores as a result and the book did extremely well all from maybe starting from getting testimonials.

Jen: that's one of the reasons why it's so important to know who your target audience is, is because then you know, like, where to direct your marketing. Like, you know that, like, what testimonials your audience is going to listen to.[00:13:00] 

Lyda: Yeah, exactly. And I think like a lot of them, people, they target readers, but it's, yes, you want to do that within the publishing street, but also like we always, as for me, marketing books, we do target the publishing industry, but we also target outside the published industry because that's where the sales are for our authors.

Jen: That makes a ton of sense. That makes a ton of sense. So, testimonials, that's a great, very practical idea. How can you actually, like, reach out to those folks without feeling kind of like, like, 

Jen: slimy, creepy? Yeah, yeah.

Lyda: Yeah. Um, well, I mean, never write a huge long email. Always keep your emails under a hundred words. That's kind of my rule of thumb. Because if you got an email that's an essay long, you probably are not going to want to read it. I know when, if I see them, like, okay, I'm going to save this email for later.

Lyda: If, only if I don't know them, if I know the person, like, okay, we'll go through it. But if it's somebody, I kind of think it's like a sales and [00:14:00] I, I don't, it kind of gives me the ick sometimes, I guess you could say. Um, so you want to keep it really short and you want to say in the subject, testimonial like request, and then get, don't give your title, give the value.

Lyda: So if your book, um, like for our book, one of our books, that's, um, a self love journal for the non journalers, our value is, is that you can reprogram your, um, your, Yourself to, um, you can reprogram yourself, um, for more self love and positive talk, which then creates more manifestation around you, creates happiness and creates a beautiful, better life.

Lyda: So if you put that into a tagline, it's a journal for the dawn journalers who want to reprogram and gain more self love. That is not the title. It's the value that we're looking for instead. And then you want to make sure you say in the actual email of like, hi, as many of you would be open to providing a testimonial for my book. Um, it's about X, Y, Z. Um, the readers will [00:15:00] gain X, Y, Z. Even if it's a fictional book, the readers do gain something. Um, so make sure you list that and let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a copy over ebook or if there's somebody really famous and like you love and you're a fan, definitely send them the hardcover.

Jen: I love that you just said that even if it's fiction, people still gain value and to think about what the value is because I think sometimes we forget that The amazing things that we're creating in the world, they do matter and they solve problems and they create value. And even if they're not like fixing a tire on the side of the road or whatever, or healing somebody's illness, like whatever it is that they, you know, whatever it is that the, the book you're writing does and offers, there is value there.

Jen: Even if it's like bringing somebody joy, that's like immense value. 

Jen: They're giving them the opportunity to go to another world in a fiction book, right? Like and have that [00:16:00] creative adventure, like that is valuable. It matters. It's an important part of the human experience. And I know I want my listeners to feel like the work that they're doing.

Jen: In this world, it really does matter, and it's worthy of their time. And so, even as we think about marketing, like, that value proposition is a big deal, and it matters, and it's there. Your book, your work, it has value.

Lyda: Yeah. every book has value no matter what. It's just, um, finding the right target audience and also packaging it up in a way that, that Relates to them 

Jen: How can people really learn to understand or recognize or see what the value is that they're bringing, do you think?

Lyda: it's always so challenging because it's so hard if it's your personal story, even if let's say like, we'll do it twice, like there's your personal story and then there's a fiction. And you're literally putting your heart and soul and people criticize these. [00:17:00] Like when you're a creative, like let's say you're an artist for a painter, you're a movie, you're an actress, you're a movie director, you wrote a screenplay, you wrote a book, like no matter what, there's, You're there's critical that people are critical because they can hide behind a screen, but it's also like a lot of times it's based on jealousy.

Lyda: It's not understanding. Um, and also they're not your target audience knowing that they're not your target audience, it's really easy to remove them because your target audience is going to love it because you wrote it for them. and you're putting your heart out for them.

Lyda: And a lot of times, even though. Let's say you went through a crazy experience, like one of our authors, Crystal, she is a, um, her memoir is based on her journey, um, from basketball and she's, um, for, she played for liberties for New York. Um, and she's absolutely amazing. She went through an extreme trauma and she put it in the book of what she went through, um, and just, you know, Her relationships, um, like her family relationships, everything, [00:18:00] and she put her heart there on the table and she, and it was scary at first putting it there.

Lyda: And I was like, I'm like, we're doing like, I'm here for you. We're doing this launch. And like, people loved her book, even though they didn't go through the same experiences as her. It's just that it gave them so much courage to go through Other experiences that they were facing that if she can do it, I can do it too.

Lyda: And it's like, it was just courageous, um, of the things that she went through. She healed, created a whole new identity for herself. And it's just this beautiful, beautiful story. And it gives people that are maybe going through something similar or that they have hope or people that don't have that kind of experience, but it just gives them so much empathy and love.

Lyda: And like, I can do anything if I put my mind to it as well. 

Jen: it makes you as the author like so much more human and relatable because

Jen: who among us has not had something that we've had to overcome and needed that inspiration to like say, if they can do it, [00:19:00] then I can do it and finding that courage and just seeing what's possible 

Jen: out 

Jen: there. 

Empowering Authors and Building Community

Jen: That's what I think, Lyda, is so cool about the work that you do in the world, um, in terms of helping people bring their written work into creation, like out into the world, putting it out there for others to see, and helping the people that you work with to have the confidence, the resourcefulness, the knowledge to And the help, the support to be able to go out there and do that is because these are the aspects of like the human experience and we're all kind of going through some version of that.

Jen: Um, it's so incredible to think of like what we could do to support each other in doing this work. Like, so as a writer, like how can I support the woman next to me and empower them to like write their book?

Lyda: I think it's also doing it, um, and not giving up on your own dream, because if you give up on your [00:20:00] dream, then it also allows other people to give up on theirs. But that's of course their choice, but you want to lead by example. Um, and it's just like, it's just showing that you can do it. Other people can do it too.

Lyda: And. Nobody is your competition. You yourself are your own competition. When you see another female being successful, having an amazing launch, going on the New York Times bestseller list, like that's just proof that you can do it too.

Jen: strong women empower other women, And like they empower them by their example, if nothing else. I'm so inspired by what you're saying. And it's making me not want to quit because it can be, it can be hard, Especially if you wear a lot of hats in life and you're, play a lot of roles that are important to a lot of people. How do you huh? Yeah, how do you help your authors to stay focused on their writing goals when they've also got a lot of other things going on?

Lyda: one thing that we do, like a few things is that [00:21:00] my authors always text me, so I'm always available for text. Um, and I know with like, um, with one of my authors, because like, uh, she's in a wheelchair, for example, and she'll, she like, we're always flexible. She needs to cancel last minute. That's okay.

Lyda: Cause it's such a creative process, but I'm, we always just reschedule instantly. And then we also make, so, cause like, We always make sure like after the meeting that the author has an hour afterwards to write so like I make sure that they're in a comfortable space that like they have all the materials that they need because if you stop after the meeting a lot of times some of that inspiration or that creativity you'll forget it and maybe something happens and you won't but it's I always find for myself by after a meeting or something I always finish the work or I keep on going afterwards because it's all in my head right then and there so I try not to stop at least for an hour to 30 minutes afterwards. 

Jen: That's a really smart tip. It's like carve out that time ahead of time.

Lyda: Yeah, and then romanticizing it too. Like I [00:22:00] love romanticizing writing and like I sometimes I'll binge on Instagram you'll see like people writing in a reading like such a beautiful atmosphere and like a nice dress and so I always think that like just wear your like favorite clothes or maybe be comfortable but like Romanticize it.

Lyda: If you want like a glass of wine, will you do it? Then do it. If you want tea, I like to like every morning, like something that I like to do is when I'm writing or I'm journaling or I'm like, you know, just starting my day, I love to have like a chocolate with my coffee every morning. So that's just like me though.

Lyda: But it's like, it's just kind of like that ritual too. So kind of like romanticize, like do like add the things that make you happier, give you joy to look forward to on top of it.

Jen: because it's really it's really a gift to yourself to be able to carve out that time to write and it's such a gift to be able to do that in the world and put it out there if that's what you want to do if you want to put your story out there whether it's a like is that a memoir or [00:23:00] fiction book um and so treating it as a gift from the beginning makes it very magical and beautiful.

Lyda: Yeah, cause it's like, you're going to miss the experience and it's like, it's an experience for yourself and it, and it feels like it's, only authors have a lot of fun doing it. Even when they're writing like the hard stuff, it's still like, it's really therapeutic and it's like, it's just like a release.

Lyda: And I didn't really realize until probably a few years ago of like just how important writing that part, some parts of their story is and they're in like how some, like they saved it or like for a later time, cause it's a hard piece to write. Even when it's fiction too, like I know one of my authors, he wrote a fiction series and he added science to it as a sci fi.

Lyda: And there's like some hard, um, like, like it talked about some really difficult topics in, in the series that everybody can relate to. But it, but it was like writing those is still like therapeutic because it's like, it still relates to parts of his life or other items [00:24:00] too, even though it's in a fantasy and fiction realm.

Jen: Wow, yeah, writing conserves so many different, um, purposes and aspects. Um, I love when you said it like it should be fun because I think it should like we should enjoy this journey. Um, and allow the writing to be fun. Allow the marketing to be fun. Like what can make the marketing fun? Do you think?

Lyda: I like when you get a testimonial, it's so, it's like really amazing, but it's also like the community that you get to be a part of. You get to meet so many other authors and not, maybe not authors too, but like just other people that you would never have met. Like one of my authors, she's going on a live Facebook video, um, on Monday and it's to this like huge group for nutrition people that are following this dietitian and she would have never met these people or talked about this.

Lyda: Self love when it comes to eating necessarily without that connection of the book in a lot of ways. And [00:25:00] same with, um, like one of my authors, like for fantasy and fiction, especially, um, there's like, there's these groups of authors that are online that you can find, and they're all pertaining to your genre.

Lyda: So you can join that group and like, you've become friends with a lot of people.

Jen: It's really about community and the people that we get to impact and having fun and bringing joy to it. 

Lyda: I think readers are so much fun, too. Like, I was at the LA Book Festival last year, and people are just like, they're, I don't know about what it is about readers and authors, but like, they're just genuinely such nice and good people, and just so friendly and happy, and it's just, I think it's just that group of that industry, which is really beautiful.

Jen: It is, it is. 

Conclusion and How to Connect

Jen: Speaking of meeting people, I'm so glad. That I got to meet you and I got to be, have you be a part of this podcast. It really means a lot to me that you're here. I think people are going to learn a lot from what you've [00:26:00] shared here today and hopefully be inspired to romanticize writing, romanticize marketing.

Jen: can you tell folks a little bit about how they can learn more about you or even work with you?

Lyda: Yeah, they're always free to reach out to me on my website, talkplustell. com. Um, and then email me too. I have a Facebook group that I'm giving out, like, where I'm just really trying to give out tons of value to tell people about marketing first steps and just public, how to publish your book too. Cause that's really important.

Lyda: The industry tries to make it a little complicated and it's not that complicated. It will take you under an hour to actually hit publish on your book once you have all the materials. So, um, just kind of like really trying to demystify publishing for people so they can reach me on my website and email me and they can just ask questions on Instagram too, which is at talk plus tell.

Jen: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know I'm definitely going to have to go look for your Facebook group, I think. I know we connected already, I [00:27:00] think, on Instagram, right?

Jen: But for sure, um, yeah, for sure, I would love to, like, check out what you're doing over on Facebook in that group, too. And you've shared so many great tips that I'm sure there's lots of value there as well.

Lyda: thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed talking to you even beforehand. It was just so much fun getting to know you 

Jen: Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad we should have hit, we should have hit record a lot sooner. It's like, the listeners are definitely going to miss out on all of our talk around cooking and French cooking in particular, and lessons in chemistry, that book

Jen: and that the show, it was really, it was really fun. Just a delightful time.

Jen: Thank you so much.

Lyda: Thank you too.

Jen: ​